


You Don't Know My Name | Trevor Philips

by CatLadyInTraining



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Female Character of Color, Finger Sucking, Fingerfucking, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, In Character, Masturbation, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rough Kissing, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Slow Romance, Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, vice city
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:21:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28266795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLadyInTraining/pseuds/CatLadyInTraining
Summary: For Catharina Losada, a twenty-nine-year-old queen of Vice City, there hasn’t been a single thing she couldn’t get her hands on. A life of general security and mischief is fun, but there is one thing she craves more than the white dust at her fingertips: danger.When a FIB agent dies by her hands, Catharina is presented with a unique opportunity to escape, one she can’t afford to pass up, and once she won’t leave behind. Joining the plastic world of Los Santos. The only other city where drugs, sex, and murder run rampant just as much as her own.Being the Leader of a Cartel will always prove to have its downsides, and there’s one man in particular who has become increasingly interested in the world of Catharina’s drug trafficking ring. A man rattled with slit throats, rage, and aggression. One who doesn’t let minor mishaps get in his way.His name is Trevor Phillips. He wants what Catharina has.He sees the darkness in her beauty, and she sees the beauty in his darkness. Which is the moth to be consumed by the flame? Catharina vows it will not be her, but as all royals rise, at some point, they must fall.
Relationships: Trevor Philips/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 13





	1. The Snake

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Spider and the Fly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15149324) by [CatLadyInTraining](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLadyInTraining/pseuds/CatLadyInTraining). 



**THE ring of a slap echoed in the warehouse tenfold, just short of overpowering the crashing waves in the distance.** Catharina Losada’s fingers had left quite an impression upon his dark skin, a deep red, much like the splattered freckles across his hands and blue polo. Stained, incompetent, his poise unmatching the panic rising in his throat. The slight tremble in his trigger finger when Catharina had stepped over the body. 

“For fuck’s sake,” she bellowed, taking in the sight of the young man lying on the floor, the pile of blood spreading close to her burgandy tipped shoes. He looked no older than twenty-five, with needle marks trekking across his left arm, bruised and pink from his most recent high. Catharina had watched him chase the dragon six hours before, with bags upon his eyes, a sickly green to his otherwise pale complexion as he took another dose. Now a small puddle of blood had poured from his nose, spilling from his lips and beginning to clot at the multiple holes now lodged in his chest. His eyes were still open, bloodshot, not quite reaching the point of death where the color turned a ghostly white, but enough to give chills to whoever came across it. Just a simple dead man, holding more secrets in his afterlife than Catharina would prefer. “I told you not to kill him.”

Her voice pristine as glass, so clear one could bottle it. Her gunman wavered back, stepping just shy of her reach, the flight response igniting. His brain begged his legs to run, to move, to do something other than stand there, to step away from the woman’s finely pointed claws in case her own mind wished for penance. He fucked up, clear as day and fine as rain, but the anger cracked through Catharina’s sultry way of words. How pissed she was, and he swallowed hard. 

“I hired you for one reason, to  _ intimidate _ . If I wanted someone dead I’d have given the job to someone else.” 

She snapped the gun from his hands, tossing it onto the floor, the skid of it’s exterior bouncing off the walls as Catharina let her nails twirl around his chin. Consoling him like a babbling child, grazing with just enough force where she could feel the stubble across her knuckles. His lip quivered. It was a simple  _ fucking _ job. Any other fool with a brain could have followed orders, why not this one?

He must have read her mind, because the next few minutes he had tried to tell his side of the story, tripping over his words whenever her fingers lingered a little too long near the veins of his neck. “He wouldn’t give me the cash.” 

“Is that so?”

She admired how tall this man was, built like an ox. He could be just as intimidating, perhaps more if his eyes weren’t so gentle. She’d miss him, because no matter what he said, or  _ how _ , he’d be dead before the morning sun would rise. His little wife and son, having no idea their loved one had been turned to chum earlier that day, feed to the sharks inhabiting the Vice City oceans.

“He threatened you.” He remarked, lost in the gentle way she touched him. “He said the cash had been replaced with something fake, thought you weren’t being honest. I’m  _ sorry _ .”

Her warmth faded, and the gunman let out a staggered breath. Wiping a sweaty brow and never letting his eyes meet Catharina’s again, in fear they’d turn into slits, like a snake, slither into his head and poison him from the inside out. Despite the mesmerizing shade of green locked in her irises, they were like a cobra’s, ready to strike at every opportune moment, and feast on the flesh of those that wronged her.

Catharina took in a deep breath, very much the same way as he did, except, this time, there was a hint of sorrow. Just a hint. Almost as if she was pitying him. “I get it,” she remarked, the corner of her rid-tinted lips curling, “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t take out those that said the wrong things, right?”

Some of the other men stepped back, and it briefly felt as if he was sitting in an interrogation room, with a single swinging light flashing her devilish features then back at his. His heart skipped, the sweat built on.

“It’s a real shame.”

A barrel of a gun had pressed deeply against his throat, and before he could even react, a bullet had replaced his larynx. Falling to the ground with a thump, and the warehouse had gone back to the eerie quietness it was before. Blood tickled her skin. A minor ringing in her ear. She couldn’t help but smear the brain matter away, coating her foundation with a brilliant red. She’d need to take a shower.

“Such as shame,” she repeated, hearing him gurgle as his last breath escaped. 

Catharina gave one final look to her other workers, and sped off back to her car, still running from the looks of it. Deep in the barracks of the towering railcars and boats, her driver had kept the heat on, the chill of three am wavering goosebumps on her open arms. If her watch was correct, there would be three duffle bags of money locked in the trunk, and she felt giddy at the idea of counting it all. 

The subtle thrills of doing something bad, adrenaline pumping through her blood, no amount of cocaine could give her the same rush of taking another man’s life. The slight tiredness that overwhelmed her hours before had suddenly been enveloped by a rocket, shooting her into a frenzy as if the night would never end. As if her  _ own life _ would never end. 

She slid into the leather seats, the radio going at just a low hum. She could catch a hint of the oldies, something her previous employer would enjoy. A smile was present with both the death and the nostalgia, and her driver caught on as he set the car in motion.

“Interesting night?” He could catch the blood smeared on her olive skin. The small droplets had already dried to her foundation, cracking, but it didn’t deter her mood, more like enhanced it. 

“Not quite, but it’s still young.” 

_ I just killed someone _ , she thought, causing a giggle to rupture from deep within her throat.  _ The cops will be coming for you _ . Not like they haven’t the past three years. They knew what she did, how she had suddenly become one of the richest women on that side of the country. Wearing mink coats and red-bottom shoes, a new car every year, with a house on the beach filled to the brim with security officers who didn’t quite reach the standard of a Vice City officer. 

Catharina used the inside of her shirt to wipe the stains from her face, using the rear-view mirror to wipe away the old makeup, guts and matter. She caught a glimpse of her driver’s eyes, every so often peeking at her activities as if she was giving him a show. Slowly taking her clothes off, giving him just a hint of her bra, navy blue lace. 

Benjamin Blake, a standard Vice City man, was cute in his own sort of ways. Average build, young, a chiseled jaw with honey-brown eyes, a respectable human being with a personality of a white wall, in other words, _ boring _ . But sex never catered to what a person is like, only what they feel, and Catharina sat close to the driver’s seat, a mere inch from his ear. 

“Will you be staying home tonight?” He asked, trying to ignore Catharina’s hot breath hovering over his neck. Her eyes screamed curiosity, her background repelling it. He knew how dangerous of a woman she was, but the looks? Under different circumstances, she’d have been a super model. With the intense gaze, her pursed lips, the highlight of her cheekbones. She had those natural bedroom eyes that made men weak to their knees with a body to do the same. Any man would have been stupid to ignore how she played the field, her confidence unruly, her history matching. 

“Not tonight,” she replied, her voice like a lullaby, singing as she came ever so closer. “I think being at home is a rather bland idea.” One of her hands traced itself over the silk of his shirt, slipping between the open folds and feeling his warm skin with her own fingers, the toned muscles, she grew excited just thinking about it. “I might go to the bar,” she fondled with one of his buttons, popping it open with a single stroke, “the beach,” the edge of her nail grazed his nipple, and she felt him grow tense, “staying home sounds boring, doesn’t it?”

Her lips brushed against his neck, giving him a soft kiss. “Why don’t you come with me?” She playfully asked, coy, one of her eyebrows rose as she left just an inch of space between them. 

From the corner of her eye, she could see the tightness in his pants growing. 

“Right now?”

“Stop right now, and I can make your life heavenly.”

The car pulled to the side, just a few blocks from her home, away from sight where even the yellow lights could not glare above them. Catharina began unbuttoning her blouse. Tossing it to the side before a gun cocked just behind her, the smell of gunfire a mere distance from her nose. 

_ Shit _ . 

The cold metal left a mild imprint on her forehead. Catharina laughed, messing with the straps of her bra as if the gun was a toy, and he was a child. If it had been any other night, she’d be terrified. The high of her adrenaline would have been lost in a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds with how quick he had turned against her, but the idea of betrayal, maybe it was the shock of killing another person, or she truly fell off her rocker, but it added to the tension between her legs. 

“What are you going to do?” She cooed, “shoot me?”

Benjamin wiped a stray hair from his forehead, slick with sweat, “FIB. You’re under arrest.”

She laughed harder, as if it was all a big joke with a punchline not worth the setup. The edge of her eyes crinkled, and her age had been apparent for just a brief moment, but her laughter stopped, as did the sweeter edge of her voice. “Of course you are.”

Catharina felt her spine shiver. Being targeted came with the job. How many of those Columbians had tottered over to America to kill her? Ten, twenty? Clearly her name should have been a hint she had nine lives. Her death would be quite a spectacle, but Catharina was not prepared to go out just yet. 

But prison? It never quite fit her MO. She’d been stuck there once, with a roommate who’s arms were bigger than Catharina’s thighs, and fists larger than her head. She’d been nineteen then, just a baby in the game, and she vowed never to return, no matter how dangerous the situation could be. Death was an easier option, would Benjamin kill her if she stepped too far?” 

“C’mon,” Catharia slowly recomposed herself, focusing on the thought of how much of a rush it was bringing her. Benjamin was just like every other man, where the desire of one’s lust outweighed the benefits of known consequences. How easily they fell to be pleasured by a beautiful woman, with nothing to lose, and millions to gain. Manipulation came to be humanity’s bitter truth, the most honest behavior, and Catharina was the master of it all, using every weak-willed man to her advantage, no matter the outcome. “You want to kill the buzz that early?” She came closer, and the tremble of his hand had her pause, would he really do it? “Just a couple of hours. We can even use your handcuffs right now.”

He pressed the gun firmly against her, and she leaned back in the seat, letting the buttery leather take her back in. Settling in just right, her legs spread with just enough space for her own hands to line every one of her own curves. Tracing from the exposed hold of her jeans, to her abdomen, right to the edge of her bra, letting her fingers hover right above her nipples. 

“You know why you’re wanted,” he said, matter-of-factly, every other word wavering as if he was concentrating on something else. “You’re dangerous.”

“Am I?” She slipped one of her fingers in her mouth, licking it with the tip of her tongue, never breaking contact. Lust glazed her eyes, the faint pink dusting her cheeks. Catharina let one of her hands fall between her legs, teasing herself between her jeans as a sweet noise escaped from her lips. “Do you want to personally make sure of it?” 

Benjamin shook his head, his hand shaky as the gun pressed further. His eyes were locked on Catharina, following the movements of her hands as she played with herself, the heavy heaves of her chest. The soft glow of her eyes whenever a truck raced by. He begged for light to continue coming, letting him get the full view of Catharina unbuttoning her jeans. Her underwear was sheen, he could see everything. Even the small mole just shy of her hip. 

“You know what they say? Crazy in the streets, even crazier in the sheets?” She paused every other word, using her free hand to hold to his wrist, nearly pushing herself into him with every personal touch she had given herself. Her breathing took off, continuing to give whimpering whines as he continued to watch. She was right at the edge, and just before she could climb it, Benjamin dropped the gun.

He was waiting for the sound to thud across the car, and then the two of them would have a little chat before proceeding to their nightly ordeals, or, so he thought. Catharina had much different plans, nabbing it at just the right time and setting it off, Benjamin’s dead body slumped in the seat before she could even process how irritated she had become. 

_ Fuck me _ . She let the back of her head press against the seat, her ears ringing the second time that night. She’d need a cab, no, something. A plane? Catharina killed a cop, and not just any type either, an agent. If she wasn’t in deep shit already, this was the beginning. Those Vice City bastards wouldn’t let her get away with this, no matter how much money she had stored in the yacht. 

Benjamin’s nose had disappeared in the blast, blood pouring onto the floor and pooling down her legs. It felt warm, warmer than her gunman’s gurgling fluids, and even more intense with how easy it had come by to kill him. She felt empty, the high gone the second the bullet had escaped the barrel and replaced it with nothing. If only he had given her a few more seconds, then she’d be in post-euphoric bliss, but that was too much to ask for it seemed.

How long would she have? Two, three days to make a run for it? It was her own fault for not realizing an agent had slithered into her band of bad guys, but it didn’t take the pain of it away. She’d have asked him his name if she could, his real one, his designation, agenda, plan. He was a good guy, perhaps better now knowing what he really did in his free time. How’d he even come across her case? What made him think he could take his badge off one day, and catch one of the worst sides of the world?

She really wanted a cigarette. A bitter taste stuck in her mouth. Or maybe she was just craving something to chew on, keep her mind off the questions bombarding her mind. She’d have to leave her home, that was sure. Every agent, cop, and even security guard would have her name on their lists, waiting for her to screw up and find herself locked in prison. Ignoring the past few decades where her family had given them riches beyond imagine, and fame along with it. 

When another truck whizzed by, Catharina searched for her phone in the mess, dialing a number and trying to speak as quickly as possible. An agent in the midsts meant more secrets. Was her phone tapped? She couldn’t take the chance. If they were watching, and she bet they were, she only had fifteen seconds before her location would be set by the towers. 

Samuel Baign would know what to do.

“I have another problem,” she said, knowing he’d get the gist without giving away much information, She went on auto-pilot, her voice never cracking, never wavering, just cool, calm and collected as she had always been. “I need a plane ticket out of Vice for awhile.”  _ Fifteen seconds _ , “come by with whatever you got later.” 

Catharina shut her phone off. Throwing her jeans on before stepping away from the car, how salty the air smelt. She worked her magic, taking one of the duffle bags from her trunk, and setting the whole thing ablaze without turning back.

They’d be after her. She knew that. 

Feeling the heat against her back, the explosion of the car. Horns from other vehicles across the town went off, windows shattering. It had become a long night, and with the blood soaking through her jeans, she realized it wouldn’t be ending either. Maybe it would have been better if he had just shot her right then. At least it would have solved all their problems. 

Her throat went dry. 

She wanted the high back. 

Anything to take away the strange feeling deep within her gut telling her to run.


	2. The Job

**The City of Saints.** Ironic considering the whole state of Los Santos bared a close resemblance to crime central. Unlimited access to it all, Catharina would say, the easy sex, the long takes of liquor, the high of drugs and adrenaline shot up in everybody’s veins. It didn’t matter if she lived on the beaches of Vespucci or the low-end housing deep in the ghetto, the city itself suffocated the locals with excitement. It suffocated _ her _ . A city where whatever Catharina wanted, she could have with a snap of her finger. Just like always, the only difference would be seeing the sunset at the rich, blue ocean, rather than behind her house as she had been accustomed to the last decade. 

On the other side of LS, past the men in expensive suits and bejeweled women, Catharina had just finished ordering another martini, dry, with a few olives to satisfy her tastes. The tingle of alcohol made her toes curl, the rush of the world beginning to turn just a little bit hazy. There weren't many things that could damper her spirits sitting in that nightclub, neon lights swirling above her table, the cushion of the seat easing the pain in her back, and the sweet piano playing live made her realize no matter what, there were some things better in her hometown.

Some people she missed. 

“I hate it.” She said flatly, taking another long drink to let the liquor burn down to her stomach. The pianist had no rhythm, no soul, only following the piece as it was written when he practiced. Perhaps she was spoiled in Vice City, where people played with their hearts upon the keys and made the public feel as they did, this one, he failed in her eyes, and she soon fell out of his tune, paying more attention to the litters of men surrounding her when the music faded. 

One of the guards hovered over Catharina’s shoulder, Miles “Bootleg” James, a standard expert in guns from the deep inner workings of Liberty City. A man of near seven feet tall, with a heaving amount of muscles to top off his abnormal build, with legs formed from tree trunks and arms carved by Hercules himself. A tough form to fit into clothing, but Miles, hoarded custom pressed suits like bottled water, never leaving the house without a three-piece get-up and polished shoes to match. 

Miles was much older than Catharina, by twenty years almost to the exact day. His hair salted with white, the corners of black barely escaping now and only visible near his ears. Despite his age, he was deadly, with eyes like a shark, cold and dark, ready to snap at any who misjudged him by looks alone. As well as little Catharina, who spent her “vacation” seeing how many more drinks she could guzzle before the bartender would cut her off. 

Samuel had given Miles the run down in less than twenty-four hours, and since, he hadn’t left her side. Only taking breaks when his nicotine levels shot too low, or when Catharina dismissed him when she waltzed into her bedroom late in the morning. 

“He fucking sucks,” Miles said, the bluntness causing Catharina to giggle. 

The other patrons gave a slow clap when he had left the stage, and she was beginning to wonder if LS locals ever heard good music. She always heard too much sun makes people stupid and no better place to test that theory than in the “Sunny State” of the good ol’ US of A. And from the few days she spent already, the words were becoming more true by the second.

Miles' phone buzzed in his pocket, and before Catharina could ask who it was, his finger tapped her shoulder, bringing the phone to her own hand so she could take the call without asking.

“Hello?”

They shuffled on the other end, the buzz of a computer just shy of the speaker. She finished off her third martini, signaling Miles to get another one as Samuel’s voice filled her ear. “How’s LS?” He was out of breath, sounded like he was in the midst of moving things around, but Catharina didn’t pry. She was more focused on how the conversation started, he knew she didn’t like small talk, and before she could gripe at him, he laughed. “Sorry, had to do it to ya. I have some news. Know anyone from that side,  _ other _ than Madrazo?”

Her business partner lived somewhere in the northern area of the city, and so far, she kept a distance. The two of them always kept a country between their criminal acts, a professional bond unlike any other, and from what she could judge, he seemed to be shit with how often he was caught, how often he  _ killed _ the witnesses to keep his side of the story intact. She didn’t mind him when it was solely about the business of the cartel, but if he called her one more time to set up a party date, she was going to take him out herself. 

When Catharina didn’t answer, Sam continued his espionage on her afternoon, each word digging deep. “What I was going to ask was how many people know you, personally I mean. This guy had found your location in a matter of days, if not hours. He seems to be asking you by the first name.”

“Got any details I could work with here?”

Imagining Samuel on the other end looking through post it notes and various contracts was amusing. The light blue glare across his chiseled features, the tap of a nervous foot underneath his desk, all derived from how strained his vocal chores seemed to be, sparking more curiosity and nearly fear into Catharina’s heart. He wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t serious, not before dinner at least. He mastered Catharina’s schedule, knowing when and where she’d have a lovely meal at  _ Copa De Lonce _ , a french restaurant south of the IAA building. She’d spend two hours there. Ordering the best wines, the juiciest steak, leaving in a chaperone car where Miles would deliver her to the house deep within the hills to continue his job. Then would Samuel call her, and only then. 

“Lester something, Lester Creek? Crap? Crezo?”

“ _ Crest _ ?” She nearly strained to say, and she was thrilled to feel Mile’s presence back behind her, with a new drink to ease the tensions building within her spine. Her teeth grinded against each other, her jaw locked, she completely forgot that creep lived in the cesspools of Los Santos. How long had it been, three, four years since she last heard that name? Figured him to be dead, until he called out of the blue while she was in Bermuda. She only got a voicemail then, but she made sure he knew she got it. 

“That’s him. He knows you’re living in LS, Cat. I’d keep on the down-low if you could, don’t know what he knows, y’know?” 

She tried to drink her next martini, but the thought of Lester Crest knowing she was in town caused a ping of anger to run through her body. The slight tremble of rage when she pulled the olives from her drink. She remembered he was good, but spineless, and didn't have the nerve to go up against the more dangerous criminals no matter the end goal. Especially when it dealt with her. She threatened she’d cut his legs off if he tried to get a hold of her again, especially after the ordeal with her brother. He knew she was serious, the sniffle of his voice receding away before the call ended that afternoon. 

What would he want with her now? 

“Cat?”

“I’m still here.”

“I can get you a plane to Liberty City if you want.”

She shook her head no, despite the fact Samuel wouldn’t see. If Lester wanted her so God damn bad, he’d get the news she skipped town, find her next location, and start the process all over again. There was only one way to settle it, and she placed the drink on the table, hard enough the stem of the glass cracked. 

“Tell him to meet me in Chumash, bar Forge Links in an hour.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Catharina hung up the phone and gave it back to Miles, who’s concern was not evident, but the slight flick of his eyebrow had given her the signal he had been listening in, hearing the staring in her own voice. “Anything wrong?” 

“Not quite.”

She eyed the new pianist heading to the stage, the other patrons, the locals who hadn’t a damn on what was going on. They kept their noses clean, at least, at the tables, in public. Hollering with each other’s respective groups, and Catharina’s mouth curled in a smile. Forge Link's newest owner had only begun her reign two days before, the last owner  _ disappearing _ all before the doors even opened. 

“I want them out of here, all of them.” She ate one of the olives, slipping down her throat as the lights still swirled around her. She couldn’t tell if it was the liquor or the anger, but either would work, either would fuel her to get the job done. “We have guests coming, Miles. We must make sure they feel right at home.”

Miles gestured to the others to have Forge Links in the manner she meant, and they’d do the job so perfectly even Catharina would be pleased. Fresh drinks, fresh faces, a stage present with a man too daft to care. He’d be tied of course, gagged, and behind it all, a knife-throwing cartel leader who just happened to be a good marksman, taking his eye with one shot, and letting the city of LS know, Catharina Losada was not the bitch to mess with. 

If Lester Crest wanted a meeting, he’d get one, just not in the way he’d expect. 

Within the hour, he had arrived. Showing up with two lackeys who followed him eerily close, as if they just entered the bear’s cave with nothing more than a knife strapped to their boot, taking a gander at the world of Catharina. Guards littered the premises, guns holstered between their shirts, their jeans stained with yesterday’s deeds. Had she been in the main bar, she’d have smelt them come in, the light scent of Michael’s designer cologne filling the air with a certain sweetness that covered the overwhelming hint of blood lingering in the closet. 

Lester had thought a whole list of things to say to her, but his twisted tongue, or the fear, had kept him from going in alone. He had despised the idea the second Trevor had demanded for them to come down, for his own case? They couldn’t say, but Michael was betting his newly polished car that Trevor had his mind on something else. Preferably  _ someone  _ else.

They hadn’t even received a welcome when one of the guards had issued them a table, already filled with a platter and a canister of the finest bourbon money could buy, with a tray of polished glasses at its side ready for a pour. She had specifically asked for her favorite drink, and Lester swallowed hard, knowing the signs before they had been presented.

“This is a  _ really _ bad idea,” Lester whispered through his teeth, completely on the verge of an asthma attack. Bourbon. Her own personal drink of choice when there would be a body prepared for burial. “We should go before-”

“Before what?” Catharina had asked, standing just shy of his booth. 

Lester had last seen her in person six years before, and he wished it to be his last. Since then, she hadn’t changed. Thirty-four looked good on her. Great, he’d say, if she wasn’t so damn close. The gold flecks of green appeared in her eyes whenever there was mischief to take hold, and she had it, in the form of a crippled man with two men who looked to do the same. 

Catharina had seen them pull up while she was upstairs. Watching how they shuffled their way through her doors, like a gift presented to her in the form of suffering souls. 

“You know I’m not your friend without some form of greenery.” Catharina smiled, her nails clicking against the table, the look in her eye never fading. It was almost as if she was a vindictive predator waiting for the prey to dash, and only then, would she pounce ready to claw. “Why are you here?”

She took the empty seat across them, crossing her legs, and waiting for him to speak. Except, Lester, despite his high intelligence and his way of words during briefings in heists, he had been tongue-tied, a flush evident on his cheeks as if he had been drinking the past two hours without a break. Catharina scared the  _ shit _ out of him, and not because of her background, her ties with other large men in the business, it was the fact she had known him. With details of his life he kept private, erased off the webs and any site that might have tracked him, but Catharina, she knew. Oh, she knew a lot. And judging from the way she had cocked one of her brows, her lips painted red turning into a smirk, she kept something from him, waiting until he’d fuck up, or worse.

Lester tried to stop the shaking in his fingers, propping them to his cane, leaning more to the side of the booth to get some distance from her, even if it was just a few centimeters. He could smell the sweet honey off her skin, buttered lotion, her favorite.

“I know you’re a busy woman.”

“Quite.”

“But I–” he paused, dislodging the knot forming in his throat, “– _ we _ have something you could help us on.”

“We?”

She let her eyes linger on the other two men, and Lester fumbled over their names but Catharina got them. Michael, who sat in the middle, had a reputation building in the crime of Los Santos. Not something Catharina could ignore. Word spread madly, and it didn’t help he had such a familiar face, one aged with years of experience, dark eyes, a look to him that meant strictly business, but a flare of something more. Something exciting as if he wanted to escape his own hell. He had come in with a suit, pressed, gray lilac that helped him stand out even among the other tailored guards surrounding her. If he was terrified, he didn’t let it show. Amusing. 

But the other one, he reeked of death. She could catch a whiff of it before she had even sat down. He had danger in his eyes, the thrill of riding outside the law, someone who would much rather burn from the heat rather than run to survive. Psychotic on its own, and the way he gazed at her as if she was a prize to be won, a competition to beat, she felt her jaw lock. She’d have asked him more, perhaps what the red stains on his white shirt were, or where the bruises came from that laced his knuckles, a story to be told, that’s for sure, and Catharina about signed up, but Lester had interrupted her reading. 

“We’re looking for someone to help on a job. Easy work, easy pay.” 

“Gunner?”

“Weaponry, we wouldn’t be asking if we didn’t know you had some of the best tactical gear. We need a gun with thermal vision, a big one.”

“Fifteen percent.” Michael cut in, obviously not enthralled by Lester’s lack of communication. They’d be sitting there for hours with how slow he spoke, hoping to not step on a fragile eggshell.

“Fifteen?” She laughed, cold and as sharp as glass, so clear one could have bottled it. “I don’t  _ want _ money.” An empire brought enough of that, she wanted something else, something bills could not pay. She turned back to Lester, the glisten in her eyes brighter now that an idea had just popped. “I need someone dead.”

“We can do it. Easy.”

“Not  _ we _ , Mister De Santa,  _ him _ .” She pointed to Lester. “I want  _ him _ to kill someone.”

Someone from the back walls had dragged a man towards them, tied to a chair, gagged, bloody, beaten, screaming for his life at the sight of seeing Catharina again. They propped him right beside her, smiling at her own handiwork. Richard had been his first name, and she couldn’t remember his last for the life of her. It didn’t matter though, he had been a low-level thug messing around in her stuff, he’d be dead before she could remember.

Catharina had Miles present another platter, this time gifting Lester a pistol, unmarked, solid silver with a firm grip, perfect for small hands such as herself. She didn’t care if it didn’t fit Lester properly, or if he’d admire the etched crosses and fine-tuned roses on the handle, she had only asked for him to take it, to kill the man in front of him as a payment for receiving her help. Can’t have a gunman unless he knew the pain of a gun in the first place.

“Go on,” she urged, squishing Richard’s jaw together, the blood smearing onto her own hands. “Kill him. Put the bullet in his head, and let him bleed out right in front of you.” His muffled cries kept her hand locked on his face, she didn’t dare move from her own spot, a mere inches away, perhaps in the shot of the bullet. Could Lester truly kill him? Catharina’s mouth snaked into a smile, she already knew the answer.

“What the fuck.” Michael slammed his hands on the table, standing on his feet. Red flushed his face, and if Miles hadn’t caught his hand, Michael would have gone for the gun lodged in his pants. 

The other guards took their initiative to separate Michael from the table, removing him from the bar altogether, and even managing to pull Trevor, who seemed a little less than pleased at the idea. A hoard of curses and low-level  _ fucks _ sprung from the lobby of the bar, followed by the slam of the doors, and she was prepared to hear a bullet.

Lester’s hand trembled with fear as the club went eerily silent. Richard’s death left in the barrel close to his skin, smelling of fresh gunpowder and fire. They waited, the only sounds being that of Richard’s hitched breathing, the droplets of blood escaping from the wounds tightly bound on his wrists. He’d been beaten half to death, with holes and marks to prove it. Little areas where Catharina’s nails dug into his arms, cracked ribs where her bat flung with insurmountable strength, a kiss mark, red lipstick, just shy of the gag keeping his words locked behind a thick rope of fabric. He’d been brave, she’d give him that, but now, with the reaper’s weapon close, she was waiting for that final blow.

Lester dropped the gun on the table. And her smile faded. “I can’t do it.” He said, and she briefly let out a heavy breath. She knew, of course, she knew this was the outcome, she just wanted to be proven wrong. He failed, and when Lester had hidden his eyes from her own, she took the gun and did the job herself. Letting the body smash into the tiled floor with an audible smash, the chair cracking from the impact. 

“Of course you can’t.” Catharina gave the gun back to Miles, who stepped away just enough to give her some room, to get closer to Lester who sunk into the seat, who tried to keep himself from looking into her eyes in case she’d bite like the snake she had been known for. “I know you can’t. You know why?” She got close, dropping down to his eyes level, her breath hot near his skin, “because you’re weak, Lester. A spineless fucker who hasn’t changed.”

She took another gander at the exit, Michael, Trevor, she’d have to remember them.

“Get him out,” Catharina ordered, feeling the blood beginning to dry on her arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to follow me on Tumblr! I've opened my request box so people can ask for custom imagines and headcanons regarding their favorite GTA characters. Thanks! 
> 
> LINK: https://gta5-catlady-ao3.tumblr.com/


	3. The Offer

**CATHARINA had taken a long drag of her cigarette, blowing out the smoke through her nose.** She didn’t smoke, not on average anyway, she didn’t even like high levels of nicotine on a good day. There were much better things to take than the bitter taste of cheap, drugstore cigarettes, but Catharina’s pile of  _ basuco  _ had run dry in the timespan she had been shipped away, with nothing more than the clothes on her back and a bag of cash to keep her occupied. Until the heat of Vice settled down, at least Samuel had gifted her a burner phone, Miles, and a list of known Columbian assailants that would take her down if given the chance, but she didn’t mind, clearly, with how easily she stopped from her guards to take a much needed smoke break, hearing the waves crash on the beach, the city life east of her. Inhaling another bad habit mixed in with whatever other chemicals were swirling through her veins at that moment.

She must have been doing it for quite a while, her feet began to hurt, six-inch heels never quite fit into the world of criminal escapades, with glitter and buckles that hit her ankle just right. Curling around her legs like ivy on stone, much like the bushes of flowers intertwining the buildings between one another, the smell of fresh meadow flowers, the salty beach, but Trevor, having escaped from behind the building, interrupted her sweet silence, taking a cigarette from his own pocket. She kept her stance as if she wasn’t unnerved, the gun holstered to her hip would do wonders if he took a wrong step, but he hadn’t made a move, didn’t even say a word, instead of keeping his eyes on her, as if he was studying how she held a cigarette. Her lipstick staining the tip. Red, just like her nails. 

She let her fall from her fingers and stomped her vice out into the pavement, her eyebrow cocked when the embers burned. If she was thinking more clearly, she’d have remembered she was still wearing her red-bottomed heels, not a necessity, but certainly one of her prized possessions as of late. “I told Lester no.” Catharina wasn’t amused. She was praying he didn’t try to send one of his more competent men to take the fall in case her anger got a little too riled up, but he seemed calm, collected. Unlike how he had disappeared from her nose when Miles had him thrown out of the bar. This time, the bruises on his knuckles were fresh, swollen, as if he had taken a break to beat something before waltzing back into Catharina’s nest. Enjoying the prime time of two am in the frigid night air. 

“I’m not here to kiss your ass for him crazy cakes,” he began, stepping forward enough for Catharina to get a smell of dust and oil,  _ death _ , like a decaying corpse, he had been handling bodies lately, and she couldn’t decide if that was horrifying or admirable. Usually, she’d take the hint he was good at his job, she’d give him an offer as a gunner, a roadie, someone to take the drugs if she had too many watchful eyes on the others, but this one seemed more dangerous, itching for a bigger role with action. “Catharina Losada, right? Biggest bitch on the east coast? I heard about you,  _ a lot  _ of fucking things actually.” He corrected, mumbling to himself as if he had done his research. It had only taken a second for his attitude to change, stepping back and gesturing to all of her like an art piece, presented just for him as if it was a sight to behold, “big fan.  _ Really _ big fan. Internal drug trading is my dream.”

“Thought you said you weren’t going to kiss my ass?” 

There was a sweetness in his smile, but there was also something sinister embedded between it.  _ Interesting. _ “Listen sugar tits,” again, with the nicknames, but Catharina had been called worse. From the way he dressed and presented himself as if he had been dug from the depths of the desert, she’d give him a hillbilly pass. It wasn’t much, but it would give him enough time to spill why he suddenly appeared out of nowhere and bugged her on her smoking break. She didn’t ask for much, at least she thought so, but couldn’t she have just one moment to herself without an asshole coming to ruin it?

With a determined look in his eye, he continued. “You and me,” he left his fingers do the talking, filling the space as he towered over her. Even in heels she couldn’t mistake he was a big guy, not as thick and bulky as Miles, but thin, lean,  _ tall _ . From his arms alone she could tell he was toned, just short of the needle tracks laced in his arm.  _ Jesus Christ. _ “We can do a whole lot of damage.” And the last word was lifted with a soft, sultry whisper. She’d have mistaken it if the city hadn’t died down. 

Damage? Catharina thought it was the liquor talking. “Me and you?” She scoffed, putting the distance back between them. “And what does your handler say, hm? I’m sure Lester wouldn’t like the idea of you running around with me when I told him no.”

“You got the wrong fucking idea if you think Lester is some sort of handler.”

She tried to copy that same devilish smile he had. “I’m sorry,” she said, purring with the same tone she’d use in the bedroom when sweat lined her forehead and her legs ached with pleasure, trembling, coated with bites and bruises. She could smell the beer coated on his lips. There had been a hint of something else, something bitter, tart, she couldn’t quite place it. Regardless, she had refilled the space on her own accord, taking the control back as she needed it. “But I don’t know you.”

His eyes brightened, “then come on baby! Let’s get the show on the road!”

Humorous, but in her experience, there was something missing, something she needed. And no matter what the beat in her heart was telling her, the fire of doing something wrong beginning to bloom, she had to snuff it out in case it would burn her completely. In case she’d be dumb enough to take the initiative and to fall in a spiral-like she had done years before. “Let me rephrase that, I don’t  _ trust _ you.”

The wind had caught in her hair, and she could catch a whiff of her own lilac and rosemary shampoo.  _ Home _ . It smelt like home. Mixed with the salt of the ocean, she was beginning to suspect she was still in Vice City, just shy of the docks and shark-infested waters hoping to catch the sight of her yacht docked at the harbor. She’d have her heels in her hand, walking the beach while Miles hung to the curb watching her every move, but instead of Samuel taking a long drag of his cigar, or hearing the teeth-chattering laughter that escaped his mouth when the cold dug into his bones, it had been Trevor, asking her to come on adventures galore, with the sweet taste of danger, and ideas she hadn’t had for years. How awfully strange.

Goosebumps lined her arms, and Catharina was unsure if it was the cold or her own nerves getting the better of her. What on earth could she possibly be scared of? The flame in his eyes or the yearning of wanting to agree on such a stupid idea? She shouldn’t be feeling fear. Especially knowing the real terror was rooted in potassium chloride injections, a sure fate if she had stayed in Vice with the FIB’s agent left bleeding at her legs. 

She pulled out another cigarette, covering the lighter with her hand as the smoke-filled her lungs again. This time settling those silly ideas to the side and instead focusing on what really mattered, what she came to Vice for, to hide, to blend in until she’d slip back through the airport security with Miles and pretend this trip was nothing more than a small blip in her otherwise busy schedule. 

“Sounds like you’re trying to make excuses,” Trevor said, and Catharina let the smoke escape her nose. Perhaps she was, but that didn’t mean she was going to admit it. Especially to a man, she met that very day, who knew not a single thing about her.

Her lips parted to say something, and Trevor was about to hang onto every word before Miles had exited through the back doors, gaining quite a sight the second he spotted Trevor making his next round on another cigarette. Completely unaware, or simply not caring, that he was a mere few feet from what could only be described as the most dangerous woman on the other side of the crime line, simply chatting as if they were old friends, strangers enjoying a small vice to pass the time. If only Miles knew what they were really talking about, he’d have a field day informing Samuel of the plans she had,  _ he _ had. 

Miles’ brows furrowed, the indent of a wrinkle forming at the base of his nose and curling just near his hairline. “You enjoying yourself?” He tried to keep the light anger from rising in his throat, in fear of her response in case she got the wrong idea, but she simply gave him the nod, informing him she was alright and in no immediate danger.  _ As of right now _ . If Trevor got his way, she’d have been halfway across the city with a field of officers tailing her for God knows what.

“Of course, Miles. I’ll be inside in a few minutes.”

“And him?”

Catharina’s eyes darted towards Trevor, getting the small flecks of brown shining in his eyes, something warm, she hadn’t noticed that before. The alcohol must have slowed, or passed, depending on how long she had been standing there. Her toes had already gone numb, her fingers losing sensation.

“He was on his way, just wanted to have a few choice words with me before he really left, right, Trevor?” 

The way she said his name had sent something through him. Had it been the purr of her tongue, or the incentive to lie? Either added to the fuel, the adrenaline, the absolute  _ lust _ he had felt when he had come across her in that bar with Lester, and now the daydream of seeing her in a pair of heels, and  _ only _ a pair of heels, had set itself deep into his brain, and he was sure she wasn’t going to leave anytime soon. She’d haunt him in his nightmares  _ and _ his dreams, and he wasn’t about to complain, not at all. “No doubt about it crazy cakes.” He let out a low-gruff laugh, but there wasn’t anything humorous about it. “But I never got to tell you why I really came back, other than to give those  _ choice words  _ of course.”

Catharina hadn’t said anything, and Trevor allowed himself to continue. “You and me, we could have a thing, a  _ real  _ thing, and I’m not talking about fucking in the back of my truck either. I’m talking about large corporate enterprises across the whole world. I have some innings with a few other dealers but having you on my side, we’re talking about  _ damage _ .”

Again, this word had sparked something in her, but now that Miles was watching, and most likely listening, she’d be damned before she’d admit to ever enjoying the way he said that word. It was like a whisper in her ear, guiding her to do some more ridiculous acts she’d never think twice about. 

The area between her legs grew warm, and she fidgeted as she headed back towards Miles, clearly wanting to go back inside and perhaps get another drink. She couldn’t think while sober, and her body was dripping with what only could be plain bestial lust. Having him whisper in the same way down there, with his hands wrapped around her hips and pinning her to the bed. She let out a deep breath.

“No.” She finally said, “No. I already told you  _ no _ .” She let the cigarette burn out, there was a yellow tint between her fingers, and she had the sudden urge to take a washcloth and wipe it away as if it was as tainted as Trevor’s words. Catharina was more desperate for a shower now that her body had grown increasingly warm, the layer of cigarettes only added to her irritation. “I don’t know how you do on this side of the coast, but I don’t work with people whom I don’t trust, and you Trevor, I don’t trust  _ you _ .”

She moved past Miles and entered through the back entrance of the club before Trevor could get another word in, not like she’d let him. Catharina would be trekking through the whole coast of Vespucci Beach before she’d let him get a single syllable out in her general direction, in fear her body would go against her better mind, and let her run through the roller coaster of emotions he had been giving her thus far. Hell, she might have even slept with him right then and there, letting those callouses curl around her thighs and do whatever  _ damage _ he wanted. 

Catharina’s guards had been playing a game of poker, enjoying the leftover bottles of liquor she had left out for Lester and basking in the after smell of bleach and acid, replacing the otherwise crippling odor of blood that had flitted through the room. Richard’s death had caused quite a ruckus in the short time span he had been there, not only poking around in her business but even going as far as tearing apart her floorboards after his untimely death. Miles had tried to fix it when Catharina had gone to get another drink, but the general public would just need to understand that the Forge Links bar didn’t cater to everyone, and if one hole in the floor kept them from entering, well, Catharina wouldn’t be complaining. She’d be more than thrilled to show them the door and give them one good middle finger to top it all off.

Her apartment filled the entirety of the second floor. A large condo of a master bedroom, a bathroom, and a grand view of the ocean with windows filling the entirety of the wall. A near-perfect view of the sunset every night, and if the smog wasn’t so bad, she believed she could see the constellations. Just as she had done so very long ago.

She’d have imagined there would be a grand piano in the middle, overlooking the sea and beachgoers every morning, a bar on the other side, filled with her favorite bourbons and whiskeys with a little tequila thrown in, but instead, the room had remained empty. Samuel’s voice instructing her to keep it that way as she’d be returning to Vice in due time and filling her room with frivolous things would have been a mistake. It would remain a stain, but there was one golden hope, one thing Miles had brought back from Vice just for her. 

The gray cat had wrapped his tail around her legs, and she felt his whiskers tickle the small slit of skin between her jeans and heels. Callisto. Her only living relic from Vice other than her guards. She had thanked him countlessly, unsure if Samuel would take the initiative to help him out. Now that he didn’t care, but she was sure, with her being away, the business in Vice was less than he was accustomed to, overworked with trying to find loopholes and safe havens so the two of them could continue to reign, and the other workers? The small-town locals who had depended on the life of crime to make a living? How lost were they?

Her heart skipped a beat. Bile building in her throat at the thought of Samuel messing something up, without  _ her _ there no less. She had no control over what happened across the country, and no amount of screaming, begging, and nail-digging would get Miles to allow her to return in fear for her safety. 

She took another deep breath, taking a quick shot of tequila and hopping into the shower before she could let those emotions build further in her core. The cigarette smell had buried itself into her hair as if she spent the evening in a bar. Liquor and nicotine, a combination to indulge in every night, not an aspiring stench. But Trevor. He smelt like it. As if he bathed in it alone and wondered the world without giving a damn. And that bitter smell, the one that had stuck to his lips throughout their conversation, what had that been? 

Catharina shut her eyes, letting the warm water wash over her. Her hand trailing down her abdomen, stopping just shy of her clit and rubbing it with the tips of her fingers, teasing herself in the way she enjoyed, letting her nipples grow hard and her cheeks flush with pleasure. She felt good, that warm feeling never straying even after that other shot, perhaps enhancing it, urging her to continue. 

And the gruff voice of Trevor, filling her head with danger and mischief as if he knew that’s all she wanted as if he could read her mind and sense she wanted something more, that the world she lived in was trapping the spirit that resided in her. If only he knew ten years ago, then they would spend their time fucking around and getting in more trouble than it was worth. It fueled the strength building in her core, knotting itself in a ball and tightening as she filled herself with one of her digits, pulling in and out with the irking slowness she’d scold a man for. The taunt aftermath and sensation of what could have happened if she just said _ yes _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my alarm went off, I usually set it for the night before this goes up to edit, and I go back to find only 1000 words written. Thanks past me! I ended up spending three to four hours writing this baby and it went in a much different route than I expected lmao. So I guess I'm going to have to scrape the outline to the 4th chapter and wing it, but whatever, if it makes you guys happy I'm fine with it. <3


	4. The Bar

“You’re here alone?”

Catharina turned quickly, spotting Trevor, clad in his grim attire, dirty from oil and an assortment of stains she had been too polite to ask what they were in her previous encounter, but the slight pink patterns, the ones short above the knee and laced through the threads of his white t-shirt, she could take a gander on what those were. She had a corset with similar splatters, up and down the bindings when she had taken her knife to one of her lovers one fateful evening. He bled right into the purple silk bedspread, eyes of horror when she had slipped the blade between his carotid artery and windpipe, cutting so ever slowly to watch him wake in chains and rope, the gag tucked deep within his mouth. What a night that had been. She couldn’t even remember his name. 

Poor bastard.

Trevor came prepared with a shit-eating grin laced on his face. It enhanced the scars across his lip, a beautiful array of silver slashes glowing underneath the cheap bar lights. “Thought I’d catch one of your men in black scouting the entrance.” He took the empty seat next to her, taking a second to appreciate the accumulation of bottles she had taken back. She had quite the collection so far, and a heavy tab racking up with a tip just as large as expected with how much she was demanding her not-so-friendly bartender to continue.

How long had she been there? One, two hours? And she already had taken a couple of shots and three bottles of beer, a glass of whiskey almost down to the last few drops, and that didn’t include the jello shot she had received the second she came, mistaken as another patron for a bachelorette party taking place in the corner. Not like she complained, but she would have preferred a much stronger alternative than a God damn strawberry gelatin square no bigger than her thumb.

She let the ice swirl in what was left of her glass, taking it all in before she let her eyes trace back over Trevor. He seemed enthralled by something, either the plain and simple fact she was caught alone again, or how easily she could handle her liquor. 

“You keep finding yourself around me one of these days you’ll find yourself dead.” She said, letting the cup clink against the wooden counters, debating to either get another glass or wait a few minutes to let the alcohol absorb itself into her bloodstream. She didn’t feel drunk, but she had taken in so much in so little time, she wouldn’t be surprised if she killed over with alcohol poisoning in the next few hours.

“Is that a threat?”

She shook her head, ordering another shot which the bartender gladly gave, giving Catharina the stout glass on a napkin and sliding it just shy of her fingers. “Never dream of it.” Her lips curled into a smile, and Trevor knew she was messing with him. 

It had been two weeks since she had caught him outside her own club, smoking a cigarette and watching the curl of her red lips whenever she spoke, as if she believed everything was a joke, her own words a system of playful banter just waiting for the right person to come along and continue it. Trevor would have guessed she was flirting with how her voice lilted and gave away such precious information, but from what he had been seeing, she did it to everyone. A mechanism to lure her victims in with a false sense of security, and ultimately turn on them with the same crack of a sentence, blasting them away with pure disdain and a slice of hellish hatred. 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I had figured you’d be the type of person to drink alone in their house.” Trevor said, ordering a Piswasser to accompany Catharina’s ever-growing pile. She didn’t plan to have someone come and sit their asses next to her, but she didn’t mind the company. Trevor had done something to her that night, and she would be ever so glad to let him continue whatever spell he had placed on her in those brief few minutes, the danger of doing something extreme returning and her heart skipped a quiet beat. He was a much better alternative than the douche, laid-back men LS supplied.

“Got sick of using all of mine.” Catharina finished her shot, placing the glass upside down and shoving it in the pile. “One of my bottles of bourbon is roughly five grand a bottle, and I don’t want some of my colleagues to notice an influx in my spending habits, you know,” her eyes squinted, her cheeks flush, “I don’t want them to get the wrong idea.” A wave of nausea hit her, and now she was beginning to feel the effects of drinking, far past the cozy feeling of tipsy.

“I don’t think that’s what you should be worried about.” 

“It’s not. But it’s what I’m worried about right now.” She ordered a plain Piswasser. Still trying to get rid of that awful taste of Burger Shot out of her mouth, along with Samuel’s early morning conversation that had sent her on a binge in the first place.

He had called at four am, startling her awake when Miles had come upstairs wearing one of his simple white t-shirts and loose cargo sweats, half expecting him to pull her out of bed and stuff her in a vehicle in case the cops were on their way, or worse, some of her rivals had found her location and were beginning to set a sniper in the distance. But, instead, he had come in with her phone, left downstairs after a lengthy conversation with one of her business partners across seas, and handing it to Catharina, whose eyelids were dragging across her eyes, a wispy voice tired and in desperate need of more time to sleep. She asked him what he was up to, but Miles had shoved the phone to her ear before she could process what had been going on. 

She hadn’t even time to throw the silk sheets off her shivering frame, just Samuel, speaking ever so softly as to not throw her off knowing how vastly different the time difference had been.  _ You can’t come back to Vice _ . The tiredness had faded in an instance, and she rubbed her eyes roughly enough to pull out one of her lush lashes.  _ The FIB are desperate to locate you, you have to call Haines, maybe he could give you an update _ . And he hung up. The tradition to finish the conversation in as few seconds as possible. 

Catharina felt disgusted. Tossing the phone back to Miles and curling back into bed, the waves of the ocean ever so loud to prevent her from falling back asleep. She spent the rest of the night either in sheer panic or hating Samuel, and trying to come to a conclusion on how she’d get back home. None of which made sense. Leaving her feeling more lost and confused than she had let on.

When she slipped from the safety of Forge Links, however, Miles would definitely get the idea she was more hurt than pissed. Vice City was at the brink of her palm, so close she could taste the bitterness of the sand, the laughter of Samuel in the warehouse, her heels clicking against the docks when she boarded her yacht. But now? Her days in LS were beginning to seem endless, and a bottle seemed to be the only thing keeping her from slipping away out of reality. 

Catharina chugged her beer, and Trevor’s snide comment had done nothing to phase her. “Easy there crazy-cakes.” 

She couldn’t help herself from finishing it off, adding it to her collection with just a small pool left at the bottom. The bitter taste washed down her throat, coating her in numbness that settled in the deepest parts of her heart. She hated store-bought beer, the last of it causing her spine to shiver. But hell, she was drinking, and that was all that mattered at that moment. 

“I would usually find it impressive, but you got yourself a serious problem,” Trevor said, and Catharina had cocked a single brow. 

“I’m taking that from a small-town drug dealer?” She had asked one of her associates to dig up some dirt, to really get the idea of who Trevor Phillips was. Not just anyone had the guts to ask the Queen of Cocaine to share in on some of her trade deals, but to ask in person? Now that involved some beach-ball-sized balls. But he had, unfortunately, been no different than the other low-life drug dealers escaping on borrowed time. “I know your type,” she continued when Trevor’s facial expression fell, the syllables slid through her teeth far too easily. “There are millions of you all across the country.”

She slapped a few hundred dollar bills on the counter, trying to wobble away before the floors swirled, and off she plummeted into a table, bringing the whole thing down with her in one failed swoop. Her legs felt funny, hell, everything felt funny, lost as if she suddenly slipped away from the connection between her and the physical world.  _ Jesus _ . Her heart hurt in her chest. Beating profusely as if she had taken a fresh dose of speed, which was odd, she hadn’t done anything but coke in years. 

Trevor’s disoriented voice layered itself in her head, almost echoing past the music and other patrons coming to investigate. He asked something again, words she couldn’t quite hear, but by that point, she had already left the building, the chill of the night air returning and cooling off the layer of sweat building at the nape of her neck. 

A pair of hands grabbed her arm, and she had done what little she could to brush him off. A pounding beat in her temples, the chill of the LS air nipping at her skin. The sidewalk swirled, and she leaned against a stray car to become better accustomed to her surroundings, letting the earth rock just a bit more before things settled to a halt. She could still hear the ocean. She wasn’t far from her club.

“Oh, I get it now.” Trevor had left the bar, still carrying a bottle in his hand before smashing it into the ground, a million pieces of shattered glass slipping over the concrete just past their shoes. “You don’t think I can handle myself in the business, is that it? Because, if so, I got some news for you. In fact, I have a whole  _ business _ that can rival your own sweet cheeks. We’re not just talking about drugs, we’re talking about guns too.”

“Guns?” 

Her brows furrowed, the darkness of her eyes had lifted.  _ Guns _ ? Jesus Christ. “This is not the place to be talking about business.” She wanted to shush him, to put her finger on his lips and let the pads of her skin feel the lining on his scars up close, to get a minor taste of what he had in store, but instead, she leaned further against the passenger window, her forehead pressed against her arm, her eyes tight shut, 

Catharina took in a few deep breaths, oh how her stomach rolled when she threw herself off, the knot in her stomach growing before she slid across an orange hood, letting her alcohol burn her throat again when it splashed on the asphalt. 

Trevor had said something again, but her thoughts had been elsewhere, not turning her attention back to him until she wiped her mouth with the hem of her shirt. Smearing her lipstick with the distinct sour taste of tequila and bile mixed with grease. Her heels rolled over the curb, bracing herself against a parking meter and waiting for him to give some snide comment. He had the look, planted on his face with one of his eyebrows cocked between her and her mess. 

“What are you going to say this time?” She asked, and she had taken a step towards him. Her legs felt as if they were made of lead, jeez, she hadn’t been that thrashed in years. Even mixed with all the drugs in her blood, the dopamine rushing in her head when she came oh, so close, she could get a whiff of that pungent smell of chemicals escaping from his clothes.  _ Meth _ . She should have guessed it from the first day. From the track marks on his arms. She held his wrist, getting so close he could get the bitter aftermath of a predetermined hangover. 

“Nothing sweet cheeks,” a guttural noise escaped his throat when she collapsed into him. Full weight letting go right into his chest, and her hands went weak, the braze of her skin scraping by his own fingers with one final rush sending a warmth straight through his adrenaline-fueled veins. 

He had taken a pause to realize she had passed out, right into his arms without even a second to think. How trusting. Or, maybe it wasn’t trust, maybe it was the fact she had become so wasted in so little time her body just gave up, sending her to dreamland before her own feet could trip over one another and send her into the hospital with a heavy case of poisoning and bruises on her knees. 

Trust. She needed trust…

Trevor let his eyes wander around the empty streets before he propped one of her arms over his shoulder, using his own weight to carry her limp form back to his truck. Not that she had been hard to carry. She was small, alarmingly so, weak and frail just by the arms alone. Someone that could be easily dropped kicked to the curb, overpowered if those mutant freaks she called bodyguards ever left her sight. Just like, _ right then _ . Trevor let his eyes wander over her again when he found his truck, parked a bit away from the bar, in all its red, rusted up glory with dust filling the grills. 

He fit her inside. Slipping her right into the open passenger seat before he too took the driver’s end, starting the truck, and debating on whether to take her back to the gorillas at the Forge Links NightClub, or to his own apartment downtown, further passed the beach clear in Vespucci where some of the other upper Los Santos apartments resided. The latter seemed safer, to take her back to her own residence, and maybe, just maybe, he’d get a shot at getting her to listen. Trevor Philips wasn’t afraid of most things, her bodyguards being the furthest from scary in a long while, but the idea of bringing in a lethargic, and frankly, messed up cartel leader in the laps? Didn’t sound like the safest, so he did the only other thing he could do: Drive to Floyd Hebert’s apartment.

Catharina’s cheeks were flushed with a light pink, and Trevor didn’t need the LS lights to tip him off. She had been smashed. Every drop of alcohol spurring from her pores like meth did his. Strong enough to cause a second-hand buzz.

When Trevor had made it to the apartment building, Catharina had found herself comfortable in the crook of the seat, leaning against the open window for support in case her neck fell out of place from his staggered driving. Even from a distance, he could smell the bile from her breath, those plump, not-so-innocent lips dried with day-old lipstick, and the smear of glass bottles from her time in the bar.

Trevor wasn’t quiet, stepping from his truck and slamming the door. The ongoing cursings, the mutter, even waking up Catharina from her groggy slumber with enough brain activity to realize she wasn’t alone. Hell, she wasn’t even close to the bar now, the new smells, the dust of the desert,  _ meth _ . Her body heavy, she didn’t even dare open her eyes, trying to get a better sense of where he was taking her.

She had realized her body had been hoisted up into someone’s arms delicately, like a broken bird, pressed into his solid chest with warmth cozying up her insides. Motor oil, a musk of sweat and mud. Catharina’s head burrowed its way into his neck shifting in his arms and grabbing onto the back of his shirt as if he’d drop her in any spare moment. Letting her finger sway over his bare skin, the groove of defined muscles, rocking between a hard scar and the flex of his back.

Heavy boots thudded across the concrete ground, up a few steps, metal curling in her ear with every step before a blaring light passed over her eyelids. A creak of a door and she had been hit with a different apartment, a different smell. What could only be described as old essential oil diffusers and the same chemical scent she had come across more so in recent times, meth. Such different things and she wondered who’s oils had fermented in the walls before Trevor had taken over. 

Catharina feared the worst when she felt herself sink into a couch. Weak, drugged, drunk, and alone, it was the recipe for an absolute disaster, and she had found that leaving Miles a half-assed note had been the worst mistake in her life, surpassing the death of a FIB agent and the reason she had been sunken into her own personal hell in Los Santos in the first place. Yet, she still kept her eyes tight shut, the knife on her thigh becoming increasingly warmer, almost burning her skin as if for her to grab and slash it into his chest, brute force, not even letting him realize what had happened in those few brief seconds. She just needed a few seconds to attack. Yeah, that was it. 

She waited for something, a belt to be unbuckled, a burst of sinister laughter, the throaty way he spoke as if to ensure the blood-curdling fear running through her heavy limbs, hell, she had even waited for a barrel to be pressed into the side of her head, a sick retaliation for doing the same thing to Lester weeks prior. But nothing of that sort happened, instead, the fluff of a blanket had coated her shoulders, her legs, her fingers chilled to the bone, giving warmth to the goosebumps that had lined her skin. 

An immediate breath of relief escaped her lips, and the tightness of her fingers lessened as did the burn of her blade. Catharina Losada never admitted to her own guilt, some questioning if she even had it in the first place, but she sure as hell felt something there, a twinge of something embedding itself into her heart, no, her soul as if to tell her off in its own, horrible little way. She assumed. Trevor wasn’t that type of person, was he? She didn’t know a single thing about him other than the things she heard from Miles, Samuel’s click-clack of a computer, he was a mystery, a shadow, a figure of a man Catharina could understand. But there were some things that even the evilest of men could never do, and she hoped Trevor had some mortality to him, one of them had to have it, right? 

A brush of skin traced over her forehead. Moving a limp curl from her face, either a hand, lips, and arm, she couldn’t quite place what it was, but the thuds of a man crept back through the apartment and back into the bedroom across the hall, leaving Catharina to face the dizziness of the room alone. 

The door clicked. The room was spinning, and this time, it wasn’t the alcohol or that familiar buzz. Her own hand pulled at her hair, tucking it behind her ear as she let her fingers lingered where he had touched her, so soft, delicate as if he had been afraid to hurt her even with the lightest of touches.

She shivered, and Catharina had no clue as to why. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that this is not a Tuesday, but given the fact I didn't post on the 1st or the 15th as I promised, I decided to give this one away as an apology, as well as an incentive that this book is not done yet! Despite my brief hiatus I plan to return with another chapter in the coming days (the update meant on the 15th) and will continue again as regularly planned on the 1st of March! 
> 
> I actually had a lot of trouble between this chapter and the next, mainly because I was split between continuing as I had written it the first time, or adding that extra cushioning for the next few chapters, and I sat thinking about this for nearly a month lmao. Sorry! (My original plan was to "merge" both chapters as a single update but instead, I sat on it for a few weeks instead and turned into a stupid hiatus, but whatever). 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Again, comment guys!!!!! I am an absolute slut for comments and love hearing what you do and do not like. It motivates me to write by a million so please do me a massive favor and take a second to give me a spark of joy <3 Thanks.


	5. The Agent

**_Steve Haines_ ** _. _ Catharina hadn’t heard that name in years. Not since he had left Vice with a pretty new promotion that is. Leaving behind a few dirty bags of money worth millions. Leaving  _ her _ wondering if he was ever going to come back and collect, but finding him on her doorstep that early afternoon, with his signature polos stretched tight around his neck, the complex authoritative figure hanging back, and getting a whiff of his expensive cologne, she realized the day came far,  _ far _ too soon. Her brain had been scrambled by Black Velvet the night before, and the hangover overwhelming her body sent her with shivers that were best solved with more alcohol whenever she got around to it, certainly not suitable when a now  _ agent _ had just popped in unexpectedly, going a mile a minute when he found her lounging upstairs, shocked to find her not only awake but also with bloodshot eyes and the smell of liquor pouring from her mouth. 

Catharina had just wrapped the sheen, see-through robe around her body when he came barreling upstairs, telling Miles off before spotting her easing herself in one of her chairs, debating on whether to start drinking than with a bottle of Scotch just shy of her fingers, or listen to Steve sober, the latter being the crude option. Her watch said eleven am, but Steve’s voice said seven pm happy hour at the bar down the road, so she poured a drink, warm, too lazy to get a bucket of ice downstairs now that he had found her in what was essentially her underwear, pink lace, wrapped in a layer of sheer fabric and feathers donning the edges. 

“What a wonderful surprise!” He said, giddy, too thrilling and exciting for it to be genuine. Simple over-the-top energy, all mixed in with Steve slapping her on the back when he allowed himself further in, inspecting the bed and other boxes lounging about the room. Catharina’s drink spilled over her fingers, and the headache had just gotten worse. “So nice to find you here in LS, and your call too wasn’t quite expecting that. But I’m told you’re not busy, so I have a brilliant idea.” 

Not busy? From who? Had it been the call at eight am that gave it away? Her words hushed in fear it would wake up the other occupants in the house, _Trevor_ _Philips_ who happened to be six feet away in a bedroom with another man? Another man who she had yet to meet, who whimpered in the night and the exact type to call the police when things got too hard? Yeah, so maybe she wasn’t _that_ busy. But she seemed to be preoccupied with Wade Hebert, who walked into the apartment just shortly after her call, and a direct sign to get out before she had to explain herself to Mr. Philips. 

Catharina’s eyebrow cocked, not giving Steve a word other than taking a long drink and letting the alcohol burn all the way down to her stomach. For the next twenty minutes, she’d just hear his voice, and Miles' discontent gaze left her wondering if he remembered Steve back in the day when he was merely an agent, and a wee bug in the big web of crime with a twinkle still left in his eye. How innocent he had been back then. 

Catharina was a terrible influence. 

Steve grabbed the glass from her hands, taking a sip before she could wrap her own lips around the rim. She felt her stomach sink in the pits of her toes.  _ Jesus _ . She was going to kill him if it was the last thing she ever did. Their system of staying out of each other's skin just enough to slide by had worked in the past, but seeing him in person, stealing her drink, and asking her favors in the midsts of a horrible hangover? His body bag would be floating in the LS sun soon enough. 

Then again, she should have just kept her mouth shut when she remembered Steve still lived in the LS area, but as Samuel said, this was FIB business, and who better to get the feds off her back than a corrupted agent himself? She was just hoping it would be a few duffle bags of drug money and off she’d run back to Vice with no more than a darker complexion on her skin, but the way he said  _ idea _ and the little twirl of his finger in her direction, she realized the sweet and simple get-out-of-town dream had been nothing short of, well, a dream. 

“I’m creating a task force if you will. Your people only.” 

“My people, huh?” As usual, the venom had laid it deep within her words, not giving a shit on being nice or hiding her true feelings regarding their conversation. Steve stepped back and set the cup back on the table just out of her reach. Pointing his fingers up and trying to clarify, although she was just pulling his leg, she knew what he meant. Steve just got so easily flustered. It was one of the few things that hadn’t changed about him, other than that stick up his ass, so far up his throat he probably had splinters stuck to his tongue. 

“Not that, I mean  _ your _ people. Criminals, thugs, street-roamers. I know your generous donations to the division keep it running, but I have bigger projects in mind, projects you’re suitable to do.” 

“Interesting,” she bellowed out, her voice coming deep within her stomach as she felt the emptiness rumble through her body slowly. If Steve didn’t quit his yapping in the next twenty minutes, she’d be letting go of the little bit of water still pressed into her body, right into those pricey shoes of his, and not for a second would she feel a smidge of guilt over it. “Care to elaborate, or am I expected to figure that shit out for myself?” 

“Don’t get smart with me, I’ll have you back in the big house without a trial before tomorrow morning’s breakfast. You do  _ not _ want to piss me off.” 

Catharina had caught Miles’ fingers curling in a tight fist, and if she didn’t know any better, he was preparing to beat the ass of a federal agent. Not like she would protest, but given their circumstances, she’d advise to at least let him live for a few more weeks, just enough to get her off the hook. 

“You’re a real fuckin idiot.” She shook her head, taking the bottle and drinking the rest of it in one fail swoop. It eased her headache, the one that had been brewing since she let out all her week’s Burger Shot dinners right onto the hood of some orange car. Her fingers pulled a piece of her hair behind her ear, and she shivered at the lack of warmth that had been presented a few hours before. 

“You told me once.” 

Steve handed her a paper from his pocket, folded in a million different ways with the numerous edges to prove it. Bits of it rubbed off, the corners crumpled. Brittle in her own fingers and limp as if it had been left in a pocket for half a decade. Whoever had it last had not been shy to wipe away the envelope with sweaty palms and anxiety-fueled meandering that damaged its very surface, and Catharina knew the very person whom this came from, and it hadn’t been Steve. 

She placed it on the other end of the bar counter, pretending to not give a damn, but in reality, she was anxious to see the blue pen. The  _ words _ of both compassion and fear etched so hard it left an imprint on the other side. She hadn’t gotten a letter in what, seven, eight years? Come to learn Steve kept them in his own pocket for what, enjoyment? She felt the anger boil through her blood, ending with her ears turning a heated red, and teeth grinding at the idea he had hidden this from her for so long. 

“Did you read it?” She asked, licking her lips and tasting the dry skin peeling at the outer corners. 

“A little.” 

Steve gave a wink and brushed by Miles and her cat, Callisto, before she could ask another question, echoing across the staircase with “meet us at the warehouse in East Los Santos, I expect you to come prepared. I’ll send the details to Sam!” The click of the downstairs entrance had echoed through the room, and Miles’ boots had replaced Steve’s yapping, coming just behind Catharina, smelling the mix of leather and cologne feathering off him. 

“I’m taking it, you're desperate.” He said, taking the empty bar seat next to her and eyeing her movements. Her finger rubbed the corner of the paper, eyes tired, worn out, swollen bags hanging off as she placed it under one of her empty bottles, shoveling it aside and acting as if it didn’t exist. Miles had never seen her so distant. “So tell me, Cat, where did you slip off to last night?” 

“The bar down the street.”

“You spent  _ all _ night there?”

The way she looked at him, with seething anger, glossed over, he’d have mistaken it for hurt. But Miles watched her swallow hard, her headache pounding in her temples when she slid the glass off the table, shattering on the tile floor and skidding underneath the cabinet of bottles. Taking her leave, and readjusting her robe, she continued, “it’s really none of your business, Miles. Now please,” she turned away, biting her lip just as a roar of a four-wheeler buzzed over the beach, “I got things to do, could you be a doll and continue your duties elsewhere?” 

The spat of her venom told Miles all he needed to know, and he did as he was told, his boots crunching the frosted glass before he stopped at the head of the stairs, his hand resting on the barrier. It seemed he was on the brink of saying something. Mouth parted open, licking his upper lip as he did whenever he prepared to speak, but instead, he just swallowed it, making his way downstairs and leaving Catharina.

She bit the nail of her thumb, cracking the painted acrylic. 

Trevor lingered on her skin, the mix of vodka and specs of desert sand. Maybe it was her attuned senses, or she was imagining it, but she felt as Miles could smell him off her too. Why he asked where she had spent her night. Usually, she’d bring the men she slept with back to her home, she’d wake up, kick him out, all while Miles still got the closure of knowing where she had been without ever asking. But this time, her escape to the LS run-down clubs, Trevor, his blue-painted apartment, it was a one-time deal.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is a little shorter than the rest, but I'm hoping it's the ONLY short one in this whole book. Because of that, I think I will post two chapters on March 1st as a "single" update :). That way you guys aren't dying by the slow burn as much lmao. Anyway, see you then!


	6. The Bittersweet

**Catharina’s heart stopped in her chest when she pulled into the dusty backend of the LS warehouse, spotting a rusted red Bodhi, the very one that had been parked outside Trevor’s apartment in Vespucci Beach.** Same chipped paint, the dust cemented into the tires and grill, even the leather seats, strangely clean and new despite the open windows and weathering of the seasons. 

She let her fingers trace over the back, stopping abruptly when Steve Haines had caught her from the entrance stairs. “Catharina!” He exclaimed, stepping quickly to a beat Cat had not been accustomed too and stopping just short of her reach. Perhaps for his own safety, with the smug grin laced on his lips and that giddy persona, ugh, Catherina couldn’t help but roll her eyes underneath her dark sunglasses, glittering with white crystals and a purple mirror tint that Steve couldn’t stop looking at. “Glad you could make it.” He nudged her shoulder, and she didn’t hide her distaste. 

“Not like you gave me much of a choice,” she retorted, one manicured brow rising when he gestured to her to follow. Deep into the bowels of the abandoned building, pass large FIB SUVs, a shiny black sedan that spoke old money and middle-age, and Trevor’s own unique truck, one of which she  _ prayed _ to be another shotty duplicate, but, a thought she seriously doubted. There weren’t many of those in existence, a relic on its own, and finding  _ two _ in the vainest city of the continental US of A? Her heart skipped three beats and she flicked her wet hair over her shoulder, the lilac rosemary shampoo wafting to her nose as Catharina tailed behind Steve. 

Her nails cut the inside of her palm, leaving crescent moons in place of her flesh. 

Catharina shut the door behind them, coming eye-to-eye with a fellow she had yet to meet, but judging from the same, too-tight matching polos that Steve Haines had worn since he was twenty-three, she could guess as to why. The same shit-eating grin. If he didn’t have such a large nose, she’d have thought Steve had a twin brother, the type of man you saw in those Viagra commercials or Herpe medical tabloids at two am to fill airing time. He just needed one of those golf caps and he was good to go. 

Steve’s unintentional twin had his eyes locked on her, looking at her from head to toe and she felt as if her velvet crop top, a ripped pair of jeans, and her thigh-high boots had suddenly been too much, and that said a lot. She could have worn her skin-tight dress with a cute pair of peep-toe heels to match the occasion, or even her own golfing attire just to spite them. She took in a deep breath.

“Need something?” She asked, her head cocked to one side. 

Usually she’d call them out on their bullshit for the sheer hell of it all, but if there ever had to be a time to sit down and shut up, this was the time, and Steve’s warning glance had given her all she needed. “This is my associate,” Steve said, pushing her past him as they headed down the metal stairs, racking up the other’s attention. His friend hadn’t let his eyes steer away, and it was almost as if he  _ wanted _ her to say something, conjure up some bullshit reason to plummet him in the dirt for taking a few more seconds to linger over her lower back tattoo, a pink Lotus tramp stamp essentially, in clear view with small dimples on either side. “Devin Weston is a very good friend of the bureau.”

His words were so close to her ear she felt as if it were a threat, but the others had heard, every single one of them. Including Trevor. 

If he was surprised, he hid it well. Just taking in a breath as he walked side-to-side as his associate had kept a bit of a distance. She remembered him. Michael. Michael De Something, one of Lester’s boys, and suddenly her curiosity had overwhelmed her. What in the hell was going on? Lester Crest, the sniveling computer boy behind every one of her brother’s heists and demise? Working with the FIB? No.

She couldn't believe it. 

What startled her had been the man strapped to a chair, right in the center of the room with bruises decorating his skin, blood pouring from his mouth, a broken side-swept nose, and oh, so much more. If she had been anywhere else with  _ anyone _ else, she’d have believed this was her own doing, give or take with significant wounds like metal rods through their thighs, a nail in their head, just the absolute most cruel, ironic, and dramatic. Her heels echoed against the hard floors, and she leaned eye-to-eye with him, trying to make out his gagged words and getting a sense of what the hell was going on.

Then, it struck her.

_ Shit _ . 

“C’mon Catharina,” Steve came close, stopping near her and lightly slapping his victim playfully, as if they were watching a football game on Sunday and not, well,  _ this.  _ “We have quite a show to begin, right? You two know what to do.”

Two? And Catharina followed his fingers, pointing at not only herself but at Trevor. Her brows furrowed. She had a sense. Sure, he had asked her to do the dirty work once or twice before, but it mostly dealt with money, drugs, sometimes the benign and stupidly impossible just to get a rising out of her, but torture? For what? When had been the last time she had behind the wrench? The psychological disruption of her victims to figure out where her rivals were growing the plantations across seas in Columbia? 

She pressed the bridge of her nose, pulling her shades off. 

_ This was going to be a long night _ . 

A few minutes later, Michael, and the other agent, Dave, had left the four of them alone. To where, she didn’t know. Only taking one of the unoccupied seats in the corner and seating herself directly across the victim, lighting a cigarette while Steve ripped the ball gag off to get a clearer picture on what the hell was going on.

Kerimov. Ferdinand Kerimov. A middle-aged man just on the brink of fortie, dark skin, his accent prominent with the slur of pain. She took a deep inhale, making sure the tobacco reached the inner workings of her lungs before she ket Steve take the reigns, watching Trevor’s limber movement across one of the spare tables in the back, with weapons, tools galore that would make anyone anxious if they had been tied down like Kerimov. It even made  _ her _ a bit anxious, just to see the ten-foot wrench planted flat on the rusted cabinet, with stained red spots and rust that had indicated it had been used before for the very same reasons. 

“Please. I told you all I know. I don’t know  _ anything _ ,” Catharina licked her lips, she had heard the same sentence over and over again, nothing new. From different people, different regions, different reasons, but this time, the enjoyment had been sucked out by Steve’s yapping, communicating with Dave Norton over the phone. Getting information. They were planning on killing someone. That was certain.

Her spine shivered, and she stomped out her cigarette butt when Steve gave them the go-ahead. Trevor first, knocking him on his back, tossing a rag over his face, and smothering him with gasoline, spilling over the floor and slapping Catharina’s sense of smell. 

Ten seconds, twenty,  _ thirty _ , she about stepped up before Trevor had thrown the can to the side, propping him back up to face her, and Trevor’s eyes locked onto her, as if to signal her something, a plea? A warning? But it was her turn anyway, as Steve instructed when everyone had left them be.  _ You’re here for a reason,  _ he said, and if that reason was to manipulate her into submission with idle threats, or to actually use her set of skills, she was debating on that. Worried it would be the latter, worried it was working.

Steve kept to himself, circling around them like vultures while they took a breather, Kerimov mumbling through heavy breathing and panic stricken into his very core. Trevor stayed standing, leaning against the assorted table with his ankles over one another, arms crossed. Catharina knew nothing about him other than his affiliation with Lester, but then, just then, in that sliver of a moment, she could get the sense he had no intention to be there, to do  _ this _ . Strange. She’d have thought of him to be the type to take pleasure in other people’s pain. Her own cartel had been filled with people like that, sadists who happened to inflict the worst on their enemies and to prove a point, they  _ loved _ it, like a drug, stronger than addiction and fueled them to do it again and again. It’s why she paid them the way she did, it was hard finding people who generally just liked killing, and a win-win if they happened to kill someone she needed out of the picture. 

Her thoughts paused when Steve snapped at her, and off she went to pick the pliers, snapping them against one another before letting Kerimov finish mumbling. Starting again with, “I  _ swear _ , I don’t know anything.” Steve still pressured her to continue, and when the metal clashed with his teeth clear in the rear end of his mouth, she locked on, prying it out with all the strength she could muster, wiggling the roots until it fell onto the floor, clacking like marbles when Steve continued his interrogation. 

Drool filled over his lips, soggy, thick, and long, coated with blood as it dribbled down his chin onto his chest full of hair. He sputtered over his words, trying to get a sense of his surroundings.

Yet, Steve still hadn’t let off, and Catharina slid her pliers over the other set of tools, wiping her hands with a dirty rag to wipe off the fluids, the blood, the saliva, the tears that had coated her fingers. She must have been doing it awhile, slowly running her nails under the fabric, the old, greasy motor oil running over the wrinkles of her knuckles, because Trevor had come close, placing his hand on her shoulder. Lingering there until her hazel eyes had taken the moment to look at him, as he did her the night before. Noticing the fine lines near his lips, the almond of his big, brown eyes, and without even taking a second to think, her voice just above whisper asked, “why?” Not about their shitty circumstances, but why had he taken her from the bar? Why hadn’t he left her to freeze out in the cold? Why had he been so kind so give her even a blanket when she had done everything in her power to scare him and his colleagues off when she hadn’t even known his name?

_ Why _ had she wanted him to toss her over the table and fuck her right then and there? 

She took in a deep breath, as did he, and she parted from him before he could have a chance to answer. She didn’t  _ want _ him to answer.

Catharina pulled out another cigarette to ease her nerves, blowing out the smoke slowly this time to better acquit the beating of her heart. The absolute lust of just being fucked over by a stranger who knew the same world she did.  _ Jesus _ , she had issues.

Trevor’s next choice had been between the old car battery and the wrench, and he had taken the safer option. Sparking the two cables against one another to send small thunderbolts in the air, lighting the room with pulses of blue light before he strapped them over his nipples, holding them there long enough for both Steve and Catharina to get the unfamiliar stench of burned flesh to overwhelm the  _ still _ fresh smell of gasoline. Kerimov tripped over his own words again when he let go, and this time Catharina could decipher the words  _ smoker _ out of his jumbled mess. 

Catharina felt pity when she eyed the wrench, it had been her turn now. But this time, Steve didn’t give them time to wait between the torture, he gestured her to go, and she took it upon herself to do so. 

Kerimov squirmed, but Catharina had two options. Do it, or get put in prison, and her time in LS had been to avoid the big house, torture in on its own, and she grabbed the metal in her hands, walking towards Kerimov, and letting gravity do the work for her. She heard his knee crack from the hit, splitting with a hard sound she could never get out of her head, no matter how many times she heard it. 

“I swear I don’t know anything.”

Another swing. 

Catharina had about let another one go before Trevor had taken a hold of her wrists, callouses a stark comparison to her otherwise soft skin. “Easy there.” He said, and it had been the first words he said to her since last night. Not playful, no cheer left, not even that flirty lilt when they had spent time behind Forge Links, just his voice, calming as he pulled it from her hands. 

The worst was over. Steve had gotten what he wanted. Kerimov let out a hushed thank you as Steve left with the words, “do what you want with him.” and Catharina had registered those words as “kill him,” but Trevor? She could see he didn’t think the same, her guess solidifying when Steve departed them, leaving the three of them alone. 

“What  _ are _ you going to do with him?” Catharina asked when Trevor had unstrapped him from his binds, leading him upstairs to the parking lot. “You’re not just going to let him go, are you? He knows all of our faces.”

She followed him outside, and the cold breeze of the LS night had shocked her. Sending goosebumps down her arms. She checked her watch, unaware she had spent the last eight hours confined in a tiny space with none other than Steve, a new world record for the longest time she had gone without thinking about impaling him on one of her antique swords or sending him into the Vice City shark-infested waters that caused people to go “missing” every day of the year. 

“I didn’t want to mention this in their Crazy Cakes,” Trevor shoved Kerimov into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind him with very little time for him to rest his case. Airports, torture victim anonymous, there had been a lot going on in the last five minutes, and even Catharina had a hard time piecing it all together. “But I had a good time staring at the tramp stamp of yours.”

His words slapped her in the face, even more than the damning sound of him wrestling into the driver’s end of the truck and shutting the door. “What? That’s what you got out of all this? My  _ tramp stamp _ ?”

“Cute dimples too.” He grinned, indicating his thumbs, and she got the meaning in more ways than words ever could. Perfect little spots to put someone’s hands in, and she was betting from the size of his thumbs, he’d fit right in. 

“I’m being serious here, Trevor, what are you going to do with him? He knows our names, our faces, hell, with the big-mouth Steve has you’d even guess he knew our addresses. You have to promise me you’ll take care of it. For good.”

She rested her hands back on the rim of his window, not yet eye-level with him, short enough to where he had to gaze down at her, but he could get the smell of something bitterly sweet coming from her, and it wasn’t the oil covering her hands, the wind carried it, filling his lungs. It suited her, the sweeter smells. Like chocolate or cola, sugar, things that made his teeth hurt like those candles in the outlet stores. She fit that persona. Oh so sweet to the point it was an illusion, and it was, she had killed a man right in front of him, and he couldn't get her out of his mind since. 

Intoxicatingly annoying.

The plea in her voice told him everything he needed to know, and he winked at her, giving her that reassurance as she shot between him and Kerimov, debating whether to finish the job herself or allow him to take the reins on this one. Could she loosen her control, just this once? Her leg began to shake, and Trevor noticed the nervous itch of her finger tapping against his truck.

“It’s an easy job done.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

He stayed silent, something he normally didn’t partake in. But the way he looked at him, with genuine curiosity and fear, he couldn’t tell her the truth, knowing partly she might find Kerimov in her free time and make  _ sure _ his corpse had either been stuffed into the sand of the desert, or thrown in the ocean where only the sharks could feast on his flesh. Lester was right, she was crazy, psycho even, but that was what made her so entertaining. If he had been placed under different circumstances, he’d follow her to the grave and back, taking riches and certified trips to the bar in celebration whenever they saw fit. Hell, he’d even kill the whole bureau of the FIB if she clutched onto his shirt just one time, as if she needed and relied on him. He felt something there, and he had a hard time telling if she did too. 

“Think of this as a pin in the conversation.” He said, driving her attention away from Kerimov. “You want to know the answer? Come to me at my apartment. You remember where it is.”

He said it more like a fact than a question, and he was right. She  _ did _ remember where it was. Even taking note of the exact apartment number like a mental photograph in her brain. 

“No.” She said, a little too quickly, and Trevor had been stunned by her quick reaction, “come to my bar. Forge Links.”

He nodded. Kerimov’s pitying cries had hinted the two of them needed to hurry with their conversation, so Catharina abided by his wishes. 

“Come tomorrow. Six-thirty. I’ll tell Miles to let you in, but no phones, and make sure no one’s tailing you.”

The bitter taste of dust filled her nose when Trevor drove away, and she had a slight rise in her heart when she realized what she had done. Instead of taking the initiative to pull the trigger on Kerimov right then and there, she had let him slip between her fingers, and all that work to come to LS would fall if he so much remembered her name. The FIB and the IAA both had her record on file, one tip of a  _ Catharina Losada _ would have the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FIB, and local authorities running miles in both her local club and her stately home in Vice to catch her and her group of bad guys. They’d win too. Either shoot her dead or catch her in the middle of the night and handcuff her wrists before she could even guess what was happening. 

She didn’t trust him. That was the end of it. His loyalty faltered elsewhere, to Lester, to his own little band of robbers. He had it in him to die with secrets, but what they knew of each other had been the equivalent of oil and water. There were always two ways to end a crime.

The one where you got caught and went to prison.

Or the other, you kill the witnesses and get out.

And Catharina felt that stark reality of letting Kerimov go, and with one last phone call that night, she was going to make sure Ferdinand Kerimov had died and stayed  _ dead _ . 


	7. The Music

Fifteen years ago, Catharina had spent one summer in the hills and valleys of the Mexico desert to pass the time. If anyone asked  _ why _ , the authorities from the Vice City Police Department had a long list of reasons, starting from felony arson, and ending with standard “incorrigible” runaway. A smartass through and through. A criminal,  _ through and through _ , with fifteen plus incidences and no desire to stop, she sat on one of the beaches, listening to the light Spanish music playing in the background, her father’s beat-up pick up truck roaring, and of course, the salty waves of the ocean, calm and smooth as the moon reflected over its surface. 

His boots pressed into the sand, the hiccup of the dent in his door emphasized by how he slammed it shut, she shivered. She had been picked up in downtown Vice City on a charge of a typical young teen escapee, a runaway without a plan and asking for spare change from strangers. She had been wearing nothing but her old pair of jeans, her sneakers with the holes, her jacket with the little pink flower embroidered on the sleeves when police had caught sight of her, so she did the only thing she could do. Run. 

She had made it three blocks when she came in contact with the backend dealers of Vice in some alley she couldn’t quite remember. The street lights barreled overhead, their gray sweaters lined with dirt, and their hollow cheekbones, skeletal when their panicked faces overheard the police sirens in the distance. The runners, dealers, whatever he called them in a moment's time. All working under the same man for the same pay, Tommy Vercetti. They knew her, of course. Her face had been planted in Tommy’s office for years. A sweet child with an even sweeter smile, staring back with big green eyes and a doe-like gaze, innocence dripped from her bones, but she had lost that years ago. Before she was even eight, her eyes spoke of death, darkened by her misdeeds. 

But her loving and doting godfather had given her exactly what she wanted when she found him on the docks of Vice, a trip to Mexico, with her dad, and she planned on staying there until her mother died or got so drunk she had forgotten she even had a daughter. Both of which, her father frowned upon, getting a phone call in the dead of night to hear his youngest daughter returning on a whim without even realizing she had crossed the border an hour before. 

She stayed on the beach that night, tears staining her cheeks when he came to sit right by her. A blanket laced over her shoulders as she buried herself in his leathery smell. Her fingers tightened around his arms, listening to the waves crash over the rocks until morning came. Peace. That’s what that had been. How quiet the Earth had been, still, rocking to the beat of her father’s heart as he held her close. Nothing in the world mattered then. All that loss, that pain, that fears carved into her heart and never left the pondering emptiness of her stomach, just  _ peace. _

That’s what had filled Catharina’s head when she played the piano for the first time in weeks. 

Miles had bought her a mini-grand, nothing as luxurious as the one she peddled in Vice, but the sound had been tuned to perfection, the keys oiled to just the right consistency, the melody, the touch, it reminded her so much of the one she lost back at home, and Miles had gifted her a piece of it to ease her troubled mind, perhaps to win her over and get the answers he so desperately sought, or to simply be kind from the generosity of his heart, it was hard to say. Despite his best intentions, she kept her mouth shut, about Trevor, about Kerimov, sitting on the piano bench and letting her fingers do the talking. 

“Impressive, hm?” Catharina had asked Miles when he came back upstairs, showing the delivery men the way out and letting his boss get the full attention she sought, the glamour of an artist, playing the soft, haunting melody of  _ Moonlight Sonata  _ by memory as she always did for a light warmup. Just to make sure the sounds were in order, to let those notes sing in the air and mesmerize those passing by. “Can you believe Samuel said no to this?” She smiled to herself, dazzling her fingers over the board when she turned back to Miles. “If I had this these last few weeks would have been nothing but a bad dream.”

Miles couldn’t help but smile, Catharina lending him one of her own as she slowed her fingers to a much somber tone. They had spent that morning keeping to themselves in quiet bliss, best for the both of them. Catharina taking her time warming up with a mellow bourbon and prancing her acrylic nails over the keys. Miles, on the other hand, had read some book left at the door that morning. Not a real page-turner, in her own opinion, but it kept him off her back, asking questions and leaving Catharina from having to have to lie time and time again.

Miles poured himself a drink, bitterly taking a sip before he gulped it in one go. He couldn’t help but let out a short-end cough, finally turning the glass over, ceremoniously placing it back on the granite tops, and grimacing at the burn going down. “I’ll leave you and your dream to it then,” he said, taking a bottle downstairs with him.

She continued to play, humming to herself as the music washed over her, taking over the room, her head, her bones, relishing in the notes. 

Catharina had been so entranced by her own playing she hadn’t heard the heavy thuds of footsteps walking back up the stairs. Not Miles, bless his heart, he knew better than to disturb her in the midst of her daydreaming. It had been Trevor. Brushing past her hoard of guardsmen drinking at the poker table, letting the wash of blue and pink lights graze over their fine-pressed suits and guns left on the bar stools. Unaware he had given them a slip, bypassing Miles' warning upon entrance, and telling him to wait at the base of the stairs.

Yeah right. 

Not only had her pack of goons been poorly mistaken, but his curiosity had presided over him. Catching her in the act, as if she had been found naked on a bearskin rug next to a fire, idly letting her own songs take the better of her, the soft, gentle whisper of her singing, sending goosebumps up his arms and leaving him in a mess. 

She had a talent, that was for certain. From how graceful she played those notes, how she had just the right harmony of her voice to fit. Trevor wasn’t a fan of any type of classical, band wise or other. Too prissy. Too convoluted for him to even give a single damn. But how she had her fingers rolling over that keyboard, her eyes shut as she concentrated on herself with those notes hitting just so that sent his ears wishing for more, suddenly, his opinion had just changed,

He could have listened all day, leaning against the banister on one leg, watching her play every song in the book if it came down to it. But his wish had been cut when she caught sight of him. Those lashes lowered, black as ink and just as silky. “You’re early,” she simply stated, not even checking the watch on her wrist, just  _ knowing _ . “I would ask why, but given the reasoning, I’d safely assume you’re not a patient person.” 

“You’d have to assume that?”

A chuckle came from her, and Trevor had been struck. He hadn’t heard her laugh before, not ironically that is. Clear and pronounced, musical in a way, it fit her in its oddity. Sincere, and he walked further in, past the stray cat toy and the booze left on the liquor bar, glasses left on side tables, the lid of the piano, even on the window sill, half-drunk, bottles piled high. If he hadn’t seen her at the bar the other day, he’d be getting his hints of her alcoholism right then and there, unaware of the collection she had in her bedroom.

“I guess that’s my fault.” 

The place smelt of old cigarettes. Fitting as he had yet to see her without one between her fingers. One of her ashtrays lingered behind one of her books, tucked near one titled  _ Please Him Two _ , and he didn’t need to take a double-take on what that meant. But, there it was again, that bittersweet undertone that lifted the room, the softness of vanilla, and cherries, and even whipped cream. As if she spent the morning baking, but he doubted it, knowing fully well she hadn’t touched a kitchen in over ten years with how she lived. Yet, the room always kept that lingering sweetness, the very one permeating off her olive skin. 

He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. The shape of her sharp shoulders, the definition of her collar bones that shimmered like gold, open and laced with a gold necklace he had yet to see her wear. Simple, with a little charm that tucked in her cleavage, something opal, colorful, reflecting off her the sun’s rays when he turned his attention back on her face, right into those green eyes. 

Catharina shut the fallboard, easing it so as to not damage the wood when Trever walked further in, eyeing everything, her velvet chairs, her teal little rug, even her robes draped across the countertops with the adorned feathers matching. She smiled, sincerely, “let’s get right down to it, shall we? You didn’t kill him, why?” 

“Didn’t feel the need.”

“The need?” She scoffed, picking up her glass from the lid of the piano and swirling it. The ice had melted, but she drank it anyway. Letting the liquid wash over her throat, still getting that slighter bitterness of liquor coursing over her tongue. Not as strong, but close, enough to feel it going through her chest and down into her stomach without second-guessing. What she needed was something more, something stronger, something  _ fresh _ , but Trever had interrupted her alone time, and she didn’t plan on being drunk in front of him yet again. “Please, indulge.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice, like venom, and her tongue clicked before she continued, “what would you  _ need  _ exactly to kill someone, hmm? Money? Information? Se-” 

“I didn’t feel like it.”

She bit her lips. Wiping the chapped skin off with her teeth, and had a hard time wondering what he meant.  _ Didn’t feel like it?  _ Strange. Usually, she’d have killed him for such a stupid answer. Her gun was pressed into the hem of her jeans, easy access, yet, she hadn’t pulled the trigger. There was still something, right on the edge of his tongue it looked like, and she rose a brow, slithering to him slowly.

“Didn’t feel like it? That’s it?”

Trever took a seat on her bar, on the white marble countertops, swinging his legs when she approached him. Again, close enough to get that smell of desert sand, but instead, got something much nicer, soap. “Do you just kill everyone who happens to piss you off that day, crazy cakes?” His lips curved into a smile as if he had thought it to be funny. Peering down at her, the glass close to her mouth, watching the liquid run over her lips, wetting them. “I mean, I get it. I’ve been on the bad end of those angry sticks where you just want to squish some fuck’s brains in, but you have to have an off day, right?”

“An off day?” She laughed. “You’re forgetting, I don’t just get to run off whenever I feel like. I happen to have a business to run.”

A pause, but Trever let the smile linger just a little longer when he said, “me too, sugar.”

The two of them leaned in, just enough to see that twinkle in each other's eyes, the honey of gold swimming in his iris. Lovely. She wanted to get closer, to let his hands run in her hair, and to feel that heat emitting off his skin, and with just a few more inches to close between them, she almost had her wish. 

Boots in the distance set her off, and she departed from that intoxicating, soapy smell. Waiting for Miles to appear, as he did, with her cellphone in hand and a questioning brow rising when he saw Trever still letting his gaze trace the lines of her jaw. 

“Phone call.” He pointed to her pink phone, setting it in her hand when he had reached arm’s distance, taking another gander at Trevor before he swallowed, hard, the fear evident in his voice, choking on his words. “It’s Sam, something happened.”

“Something?” 

But she hadn’t let him finish, putting the phone to her ear and listening to Samuel’s typing,  _ click-clack _ , the buzz of his monitor. She barely said a word before he had gone a mile a minute, as panicked as she felt at the beginning of her whole endeavor with the FIB agent, Benjamin. How her heart raced as he tried to keep his voice calm, enough for her to understand a few syllables here and there, but nothing solid. 

She clutched it tighter, her knuckles turning white.

“Okay, Samuel,” She eased him, hearing the unsteadiness of his breathing as if he had been running the last twenty minutes. His Cuban accent even more pronounced, from terror, panic, she couldn’t quite tell, but the past twenty years of his American background had just wiped itself clean, back to bar-rolling Samuel who happened to walk into the very bar Catharina owned so long ago. “Now tell me, what is this  _ something _ ?” 

“It’s  _ complicated _ .” He said, holding onto that word. As if he had a hard time saying it, with his r’s rolling, concentrating for a little too long. She could imagine him wiping the sweat off his brow, tucking his fingers on the bridge of his nose where a permanent dent of his sunglasses had been placed. “It’s hard to explain, I don’t know what happened.” He sighed, verging on tears. “I-I’m sorry, Cat.”

“Sorry? Sorry about what. Samuel talk to me here.”

“ _ Samuel _ ?”

The line went dead.

“Sam!”

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter every two weeks! Don't forget to bookmark/subscribe/comment/kudos
> 
> Every one of these actions makes me more motivated to write (especially comments), so leave what you like and dislike down below!


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